


Five Things That Never Happened To Nakatsu

by laiqualaurelote



Category: Hanazakari no Kimitachi e | Hana-Kimi & Related Fandoms
Genre: Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-09-21
Updated: 2013-09-20
Packaged: 2017-12-27 04:25:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 1,880
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/974307
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/laiqualaurelote/pseuds/laiqualaurelote
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>What it says on the tin.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

Nakatsu doesn’t cry at the funeral.

 

Mizuki cries. She’s holding up fine, at first; then the spadefuls of dirt start to fall on the plain wooden lid, and it’s like a dam breaking. She gets her handkerchief completely soaked, throws it away when it’s a sodden rag. Nakatsu gives her his, and she ruins it too.

 

After it’s all over, they sit on a bench and she clings to him and cries for two hours and seventeen minutes. Nakatsu just sits there and lets her. He thinks a lot.

 

Reasonably speaking, he ought not to be depressed about what happened. In fact, he ought to be happy about it, because now he actually has a fighting chance. He won’t deny that sudden fishtail leap of hope in his heart when the doctor came out and said he might not make it, though it crumbled with Mizuki’s expression.

 

Without Sano, there’s nothing in the way between him and Mizuki. The possibilities seep into his mind like her tears into his sleeve: maybe she’ll finally let him in, maybe they’ll get married and have beautiful track/soccer star children who will always wonder why their mother sometimes stares into space with a haunted look in her eyes.

 

It’s not happiness in his heart; it’s desolation. The truth has never been more evident than now: Mizuki will never love another man.

 

There will always be a Sano-shaped hole in Mizuki’s world. Whatever Nakatsu does, he will never be able to fill it; all he can do is try to block the light.


	2. Chapter 2

He’d always sort of known he would die for Mizuki, but the realization truly hit only when they ended up on the Island and it started to look really necessary. “Take care of Mizuki,” yelled Sano, before they were separated by Kayashima’s sniping. And he did. While Sano survived Kayashima, escaped Hibari’s lighthouse and fought his way back to them, Nakatsu took care of Mizuki, all the while ready to die for her.

 

Three days and forty deaths later, the realization became reality.

 

The pain in his stomach had spread to the rest of his body, like a tentacled jellyfish of agony. He finished teaching Sano how to steer the boat; then he walked a little way down the deck and collapsed.

 

Mizuki. Mizuki’s face, swimming blurry above him; Mizuki’s voice, crying out as if cross a sudden expanse of roaring water. “Nakatsu, please, no! Nakatsu, stay with me!”

 

Sano: “Hold on, we’ll get you to the mainland.”

 

He forced his lips to move. Obligatory, the last snappy comeback. “Concentrate on steering, you idiot, do you want to sink the boat?”

 

“Don’t talk,” wept Mizuki, “don’t try to talk, don’t move, you’ll be fine.”

 

“Mizuki,” he breathed. The words swam in his mind, slipping through his fingers like cunning fish. “Thank you…and then…”

 

Mizuki sobbed, pushing his fringe out of his eyes for him. Her fragile features outlined against the grey sky. Nakatsu thought: some people never get to see something so beautiful before they die, the luck I have.

 

“And then…I’m glad I finally found true friends.”

 

Her eyes widened in shock, her lips parting. He tried to reach up, to touch her face; died trying.

  

* * *

 

 

“That movie is so gross,” complains Mizuki, purposefully averting her eyes from the TV screen. “I don’t know how you stand all these violent movies.”

 

“It’s not just about the violence,” mutters Nakatsu, over the credit music for Battle Royale.

 

Mizuki wrinkles her nose at him and flounces out. Sano lingers. “You know, Shogo Kawada is more of the strong, silent type,” he remarks. “Hardly like you at all.”

 

“Smartass,” growls Nakatsu, hastily changing the channel.


	3. Chapter 3

Ashiya’s been silent throughout dinner. Nakatsu puts up with this at first; then it grows too unbearable. By the walk home, he’s had enough.

 

Nakatsu isn’t very good at delicacy, so he gets straight to the point. “Ashiya, something happened? You look upset.”

 

Ashiya doesn’t answer at first. He spends a lot of time shoving his fists deeper into his pockets and kicking at the dead leaves. Nakatsu’s just about given up on getting anything out of him tonight, when Ashiya suddenly asks a random question.

 

“Nakatsu, have you ever thought about the world ending?”

 

“Yep,” says Nakatsu. “Loads of times. Er, you too?”

 

Ashiya is silent for nearly another whole minute. They’re almost back at Dorm 2 when he speaks again. “I saw Sano today.”

 

“Er, yes,” agrees Nakatsu, “so did I.”

 

“At the field.”

 

“Oh, okay. Er. He goes there often.”

 

“With Kagurazaka.”

 

“Okay.” Nakatsu considers this new development. “Mr. Surprisingly Good Guy?”

 

“I don’t think he’s that nice anymore!” exclaims Ashiya abruptly.

 

“Oh.” Nakatsu stares at her, nonplussed. “Why?”

 

“They were…” begins Ashiya, and trails off.

 

“Um,” says Nakatsu, suddenly very uncomfortable in the silence. “High-jumping?”

 

“NO!” shrieks Ashiya. “They were…they were…Nakatsu, please be a little less obtuse!”

 

“What?” exclaims Nakatsu. “What? Huh? …oh.”

 

He suddenly doesn’t know what to say any more. Part of him is, well, sad that Ashiya’s sad. Another part of him is suddenly afire with hope. He thinks that ‘suddenly’ has been occurring one too many times in this whole episode.

 

“I mean…” begins Ashiya, hesitantly, “I’d never…have thought that Sano…was…well, you know. I mean, you’d never have expected him to be.”

 

“Not at all,” affirms Nakatsu.  _Didn’t expect it with me either. Look how that turned out_.

 

“It’s just…” continues Ashiya, and then doesn’t seem to have the heart to continue. He sits down on a convenient bench. Nakatsu plonks himself down next to him, as Ashiya buries his head in his hands. “I don’t know what I was – I thought he was – argh!”

 

“Ashiya,” says Nakatsu with all the gravitas he can muster, “you know you can always count on me, whatever happens.”

 

Ashiya looks up at him. His unbearably long eyelashes flutter disarmingly. “I know,” he whispers. “Thank you, Nakatsu.”

 

And he lays his head on Nakatsu’s shoulder.

 

Kagurazaka, thinks Nakatsu with a delight that he hopes is  _not_  showing on his face, is more than Surprisingly Good. He is, in fact, totally brilliant and Nakatsu will buy him free sodas for the rest of his life should Kagurazaka so wish him to.

 

“Always there for you, Ashiya,” says Nakatsu blissfully. “Always there.”


	4. Chapter 4

“I saw you and Mizuki.”

 

Nakatsu sometimes thinks about the world ending. He’s considered a meteorite from space, the next Ice Age, occasionally an alien invasion. He’s never considered what just happened, but it was definitely worse than what he’s thought of by far.

 

Sano swivels to face him, seemingly oblivious to the apocalypse he just helped to cause. “Yeah?”

 

Nakatsu’s hands twitch, no doubt from an overwhelming desire to punch the idiot who’s just ruined his life forever. “Yeah? Yeah? Are we even talking about the same thing?”

 

“Nakatsu – ” begins Sano, and then he sighs. “You mean this?”

 

Nakatsu has a sudden premonition of what will happen next. He briefly contemplates running, remembers Sano is on the track team, and is considering punching him out instead – but by this time, Sano has already crossed the meagre distance between them and folded around him like a piece of origami.

 

“This?” continues Sano, next to Nakatsu’s neck and extremely amused, “this is normal. Guys do it all the time.”

 

Nakatsu’s brain gets as far as NO THEY DO NOT and then Sano pulls back slightly, gives him a calculating look, leans in again and kisses him.

 

Nakatsu used to think Sano was a lousy kisser. On hindsight, Nakatsu has only ever been kissed by drunk Sano. Without the alcohol in the equation, however, he has to admit that Sano actually kisses – pretty –

 

At this point, Nakatsu’s brain spontaneously fries itself.

 

Aeons later, Sano comes up for breath.  _This_ , Nakatsu thinks,  _this is the part where I punch him._  Nakatsu doesn’t punch Sano. His hand isn’t working.

 

“What the hell was that about?” volunteers his mouth.

 

Sano’s hands retract from Nakatsu’s hips and return to his pockets. He shrugs as if he hasn’t just caused the second apocalypse. “As to that,” he says, grinning wider than any Sano ever had any right to grin, “you’ll have to ask Ashiya.”

 

He slopes off, watched by a speechless Nakatsu, but stops at the corner and turns back, tapping his nose with a long finger. “Nosebleed, Nakatsu.”

 

Damn everything, Nakatsu moans inwardly, dabbing frantically at his traitorous nostrils. And here he was thinking Mizuki was a one-off thing.


	5. Chapter 5

Some days everybody forgets to get takeout, and Nakatsu ends up being the one to cook up something out of the horrors in the refrigerator. Halfway through he usually decides to quit, because Sano is being disparaging as usual. Then Mizuki will say  _Shut up, Sano,_  and come over with a spoon to lift a tiny morsel into her mouth and tell him  _it’s really, really good_. And then she will make Sano try it. And Sano will say, grudgingly,  _all right, it’s not so bad_. And Nakatsu will smirk at him.

 

Some days Mizuki walks around in their shirts, which are hideously long on her. Sometimes the shirts get mixed up, as a result. Nakatsu, who is one size smaller than Sano, doesn’t really mind. Sano, who is one size larger than Nakatsu, does.

 

Some days Sano is all angst and glower, and Mizuki tiptoes around him as if the floor is covered in broken glass. Nakatsu, who would not see broken glass on the floor unless his toes were bleeding from it, will manage to say something terribly out of place, and Sano will go storming out into the rain. Mizuki will stare after him with trembling eyes, and Nakatsu will want to kill himself.

 

Some days Mizuki goes back to America, which leaves Sano and Nakatsu watching soccer match reruns in the living room by themselves. Their conversation will always consist of Nakatsu going  _What do you think Mizuki is doing now? Do you think she’s reached LA by now? Do you think she’s thinking of us?_  and so on, until Sano puts a pillow on his face/ dumps popcorn over his head/ throws him off the sofa/ kisses him, in order to make him shut up. All four methods work.

 

Some days – and these are the best days – all three of them lie on the floor and do nothing. Slowly, Mizuki falls asleep, her forehead pressed against Sano’s shoulder and her shoulder pressed against Nakatsu’s cheek. She breathes small and slow; sometimes Nakatsu has to strain to hear her. Wisps of her hair, which she has been growing out slowly but steadily, tickle his skin – but he doesn’t move, and neither does Sano. They simply lie there, like the most precious thing in the world is curled up there between them.

 

All of the days, Nakatsu risks getting confused about everything if he thinks too much about it. So he never thinks too hard, because anyway he’s good at not thinking. It’s much easier if he just lies on the floor and says to himself, _something that fits together so perfectly can’t possibly be wrong._

 

He meets Sano’s dark gaze over Mizuki’s sleeping form. Sano stares back, then blinks, and grins drowsily.  _Can’t possibly_ , thinks Nakatsu, and falls asleep too.


End file.
